>>I have now established that the client will install Outlook. Would it be fair to say that using outlook office automation is superior to all the other methods?
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>Easier? sure. Superior? Well that depends, we use both CDO and Outlook, when we need a record that the e-mail was sent successfully and be able to proof it (for example our purchasing system) then we use Outlook, but when we need to send e-mails 24/7 non-stop, then Outlook sucks, as after a few days it always died on us; so in that case we use CDO, and the same program (it actually has a checkbox to allow us to select the delivering method) it can run for months un-attended if using CDO.

True with anything done with office automation. It's perfect for single-shot operation, when you need to produce one file, or perhaps two, but when you, say, do two mailmerges in separate documents within the same instance of Word, things get hairy very easily. Doing an overnight batch with it is risky at least - first off, it seems that batch is discouraged by neglect, systematically. Each new version would have yet another new dialog which can't be turned off with the same setting which used to work for the others (they don't seem to make them off the same class, if they use classes at all :). Even when everything works, operating on dozens of files will keep eating memory and you'll have to kill it. I've traded speed for robustness and decided to reincarnate Word every 20 files. Eventually went for a third party ActiveX and gave up on Word completely.

Ten years ago I had a reporting batch which would produce about 20 megabytes of Excel files in a couple of minutes, with all the formatting, headers, subtotals, images, bells and whistles you may want. I wonder if it would still work.